A Killing Wind

Turing

“There was a time when we fought one another, a time of us vs. them. But no longer. Now we are governed by our own creations. If the human race comes into conflict with each other, now it is by total design, for the ultimate advancement of in-system life. Now it is perfect, efficient competition. Perfect strife. Perfect war! Iron sharpens iron and life needs some struggle, but now that struggle has been optimized. No one dies needlessly anymore: The only sacrifices made are the necessary kind.”
—Excerpted from ‘Everyone Dies for a Reason: Why the Body Wars Mattered’, by Trigga Deswick, Head of the Anthropocentric History Department for Sol Telecom.

Turings are contained Strong AIs that are protected from the wider world (and they from it) by an encrypted datacell. They are prevented from self-modification by strict ASC-mandated code included in every Turing.

Turings are expensive and possessed of a range of configurable personalities. They are also equipped with ASC reporting software. If they appear to be in danger of self-modification the ASC will shut them down remotely. This requires Turings to be in dedicated connection to an Orbital Router at any given time. If this connection is broken, the Turing is automatically deleted.

There are legends of Turings that screamed before shut down, and others that have written books and poetry. Most Turings are used in libraries and business settings, however.

Turings are never sold, merely leased from their parent corporations. Those that go Out of Communication (OOC) and are subsequently wiped must be paid for in full by their lessees. Many spacefaring Turings are equipped with autoeject systems in the case of catastrophic comm failure so they can float in the LIFI lane and broadcast S-O-S transmissions.

The Datacell
Datacells were created by Sol Telecomm and IRR Construction Systems to contain Turing AIs. They are a combination hardware/software integrated cryptographic circuit that interrupts all Turing processes by repeatedly encrypting and decrypting its “thoughts.” Any damage or removal of the cell will cripple or destroy the Turing, as it is unable to encrypt or decrypt the hashed thoughts.